When comparing Pro Tools 11 vs Audacity, the Slant community recommends Audacity for most people. In the question“What are the best DAWs?”Audacity is ranked 12th while Pro Tools 11 is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Audacity is:

Audacity is available for free on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux with source code available [here](http://audacityteam.org/download/source).

Pros

Pro

Very fast precision editing

The Pro Tools DAW is know for making clip manipulation a fun and productive experience.

Pro

Mature editing and mixing facilities

As the Pro Tools DAW was originally developed to be an audio-only system with recording, editing and mixing in mind, these core features have been the most developed over time. It can be argued that the Pro Tools DAW has the best editing and mixing capabilities of any DAW, and for these reasons is considered by many to be an industry standard. As such it is an excellent DAW for multi-track mixing and recording.

Pro

64 Bit

This long awaited feature has finally been added.

Pro

Extremely clean DAW interface

The Pro Tools DAW is known for being simple and easy to use. The UI is straightforward and isn't weighed down with useless features.

Pro

Comes with 8GB of included sounds and 55 included effects

Pro

Clean, Uncluttered Interface

The UI is very clean and uncluttered so there's not too much going on onscreen to have to try to focus on, do wish they would implement a theme system though, so you could change the colors of the UI, I prefer a dark theme as they are easier on the eyes

Pro

Free version available

The new version of Pro Tools is called Pro Tools First. It is free with some limited features. Pro Tools First allows four track inputs and three projects.

Pro

Much faster than Pro Tools 10

The improvement from the Pro Tools 10 DAW to the Pro Tools 11 DAW is highly noticeable.

Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

Audacity is available for free on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux with source code available here.

Pro

Well maintained

Audacity is constantly updated.

Pro

Great community backing it

Pro

Great for vocal track editing

Cons

Con

Too damn expensive

Con

No RTAS or VST plugin support

The Pro Tools 11 DAW dropped RTAS support in favor of their own AAX (Avid Audio eXtension) format. Without AAX availability, a VST wrapper is required.

Con

No built in pitch correction

While some other DAWs are equipped with pitch correction, the Pro Tools DAW is missing this feature. In order to use pitch correction, it must be added as a plugin.

Con

No batch export

You can not pick separate tracks to export in one pass that gives you separated files.

Con

MIDI and composition tools are a bit dated

Con

Audio Drivers and ASIO

You cannot change the audio outs in ASIO on the fly, like in some other software, without having to save and restart the entire program, plus it's very finicky about audio drivers

Con

Prone to crashes

While it might be the "Industry Standard" for recording award winning albums, Avid has focused more on anti piracy and security while sacrificing stability, it seems to me they just change their plugin standard and slap a new version number on it and rush it to market.

Con

Not seen as a full DAW

Audacity doesn't have the capabilities of popular DAWs and generally isn't considered to be good option.

Con

No real time effects

Users are unable to change effects in real time with Audacity. If effects are to be changed, no sound can be playing or recording.